Canon Side-Story: Making Friends Pt 2

Here was the second poll from last week. Gonna host this week's poll here in a minute, feel free to join it if you have a spare few bucks. The upgrade from $5 to $10 is in fact, only $5, it doesn't charge you twice.

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Watching the clouds, phasing out, feeling the world move around him, or maybe feeling himself move with the world. Shikamaru can’t help but feel at one with the universe at times like these. The understanding that he is just a small speck in the vastness of time and space is helpful in the way that it grounds him, though many of the people in his life would say he takes it a little too far. He feels nice, and there’s nothing wrong with that. More people could take time out of their day to feel nice, and the world would only gain from it.

There are people dying right now in senseless conflict, and he feels good, tell him, which is a better use of his time and energy?

Choji understands, that’s why he’s just a little ways away from him, quietly trying to munch on his chips without disturbing him. It’s considerate, but not particularly necessary. He’s been able to block out that sound since he was three, and he doubts that’s going to change now.

What he hasn’t been able to block out since he was three, is the click and clack of buttons. “When did you get here?” He wracks his brain to try and figure out that new conundrum, looking at the - recently blonde - girl to his side, and pondering her existence quite pensively. He doesn’t remember Sakura being that sneaky. Given she’s playing a game with headphones on and a handheld and laying without a care between them, he’s pretty sure she wasn’t trying especially hard to escape his notice either.

Is he slipping, or is she just that good all the sudden? Ino has said she’s gotten very impressive, but he didn’t think it was like this. He’d heard she became a sword slinging maniac, not stealthy and passive. “Hmm? Is my being here a problem?” Her headphones are low enough she can hear him, that’s good. Or maybe that’s bad. Should he invest in headphones? At least then Choji would feel better about eating his snack. The best way to take in the world above and re-examine one’s place in life is unflinchingly without senses in the first place. A void is good, headphones could be good.

“No.” He lays back again, tilting his eyes back up at the cosmos. “Just keep it down, please.”

“Sorry.” To her credit, she does press the buttons a lot more gently, but there’s only so much you can do when you’re clacking system parts. He’ll get used to it, easier than telling her to go away. That conversation sounds terrible.

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“Hey Kiba, wanna spar?” For Hinata, watching Sakura appear out of nowhere and challenge her teammate is a novel experience. She has a lot of mixed feelings about the normally pinkette. She’s responsible for a lot of Neji’s recent pains, but she’s also helped him a lot, and that’s nothing to speak of the current situation she’s stirred up with the Hyuuga Clan.

At least Hanabi seems to like her, oddly enough. “Here, hold this, but uh, don’t unsheath it or anything.” Holding her weapon for her isn’t too strange, while she and her teammate punch each-other in the face, but she’s heard horrific things about this weapon. Neji told her that it could steal her soul… it seems so harmless, docile in her fingers. She finds she does unsheath it, just to see, curiosity getting the best of her, and still nothing. Even as the spar drags on, and she watches the two brutally take the term ‘spar’ a little further than she ever would, the weapon seems harmless.

“Why are you glaring at Kiba?” Shino asks her out of nowhere.

“Huh? Well he’s hurting Sakura.” Hinata explains. Something seems to be weird in the way he looks at her, even with sunglasses she can tell. You get used to Shino, his expressionless expressions begin to mean so much before long, unlike most people’s. The slightest twitch means so much on his face, especially around the nose area. She has such a hard time with most people, she’s a little jealous of Sakura, being so outgoing and good with this stuff…

“Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” Her teammate asks, and her gaze trails to the sword.

“This is very powerful.” She compliments the weapon, rubbing the back of the blade softly with nimble fingers. “Good sword, protecting your master.”

“Hinata, that’s not normal either.” Shino points out.

But it is normal! She would want to do that with any weapon! She wants to pet Akamaru all the time for being such a good boy! The simmering in her cheeks doesn’t leave quickly, even though Sakura does.

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“How is this reasonable? I’m gonna die!” Sakura groans, running along as fast as she can. Lee, to his credit, is pretending to run even though it’s really obvious this is a light jog for him.

“You just need to burn brighter than the air around you!” Lee explains with a full shout, while she barely managed to get words out of her lungs in the first place.

“What about, haah, the burn, gak, in my lungs?” She whines, only not falling onto her hands and knees because he wouldn’t mock her. Yes, mocking her would be preferable to the enthusiastic, overly gleeful motivational speaking he would likely do at her the moment she fell over. She knows this because of the last time!

“It only hurts at first, Sakura, soon you’ll love the burn!” He explains to her in the most normal way possible.

“How long, hah, away, oof, is soon? I mean far, far away, ugh-”

“Maybe a year!” Lee pats her shoulder, then runs around her like it’s nothing to pat the other. Equal opportunity motivational shoulder pats, yay!

“Nope, screw this, just let me die.” She relishes the way her face slams into the dirt. Broken nose? Who cares, it’ll be better tomorrow.

“Be the you that you want to be, Sakura, get up and feel the glory of the sun on every joint you have! Gai can get you some delightfully form fitting spandex if you want, it’ll help with your training I promise!” This would go on for another hour, before she got up and ran for another period.

Making friends is hard.